Emergency Preparedness Checklist
Food storage must be part of your emergency preparedness checklist. When an emergency hits, you should be able to last at least two weeks without power and water. While you may already have water storage, how much food do you have in case an emergency were to strike tomorrow?
Most individuals have less than a week's worth of food in their cabinets, and some of these items may be perishable or need heat. Rather, when considering your emergency preparedness checklist, start with the basics and aim to build up enough over time to last a full year. Basics, in this case, encompass grains, beans, dehydrated milk, sugar, salt, oil, and seeds.
At the same time, these basics don't allow for much variety and should be supplemented with freeze dried and dehydrated foods. Mountain House, AlpineAire, Wise Foods, and Provident Pantry, all available through EarthWave Living, offer several options for freeze-dried or dehydrated foods and prepared meals.
Supply units from any of these manufacturers allow you to live off 1,100 to 1,800 calories per day. When combined with your basics, the supply units allow you to fulfill your daily nutrition and caloric needs in times of emergency.
When it comes to ordering and storing supply units, many want to know how long they will last. Although each supply unit has different figures, outside variables, such as moisture, heat, and light, affect the lifespan of freeze-dried and dehydrated foods. In storing all emergency preparedness foods, keep them in a dry, dark location in your home, preferably 50°F to 60°F. A basement, closet, or crawl space, assuming no moisture is present, is ideal. The space, however, should not have any chemicals, as fumes can enter the food supply, and the #2 ½ or #10 cans should not be buried in the ground or kept in a trash can.
A #10 can, on the other hand, has several servings. While you can scoop out a serving and re-hydrate it, what do you do with the remaining freeze-dried or dehydrated food? After a container is opened, it should be kept in an airtight environment, and three approaches can be taken to do this: invest in a commercial resealer to close the can, freeze the food, or keep it in a bag inside a container. Once a can is open, the remaining servings last up to a year. Over time, however, the food may start to deteriorate.
